Forums » Suggestions
I'm sure you're well on the way to designing and building the controls to operate capital ship, but I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in.
Flight Control
I've read a lot about your intentions with this, and it sounds perfect. It would be cool to be able to store sector routes the same way we can store /navroutes. This way if you frequently traverse a sector you can simply load your navigation path through the sector. The one issue I see is entry point. If I understand it correctly, there is a 3000 meter bubble in which ships enter a sector depending on which direction they come in from. I'm not sure how that should be handled. It might be nice to give cap ships better navigation systems so they can enter a sector at a more precise point. This might be a good idea anyway, as 1 in 10 times I enter a sector head on to an asteroid. A small ship can dodge, a big one, well, we've seen the pictures!
Station/Docking Interface and Abilities
I don't remember if you've ever talked about how the cap ships will dock with stations. Obviously, they don't fit in the docking port. I kinda figured we'd fly close enough and get a dock with station button turn on in our interface. Either way, I'm more interested in what happens from there.
There has been talk about using cap ships as personal and guild home bases. I'd like to see this happen for both individual players and for guilds. It would be great to dock the cap with a station and buy and transfer ships and weapons to the cap ship the same way I do cargo. Once in space, players can go to the hanger and take off in docked ship. Further, I'd like to see ship to ship transfers, allowing you to space dock with another ship and move cargos and equipment between them. I think this would allow some great group play as well.
Weapons Control
We now know the new TPG Destroyer of DOOM (all TGP ships get the "of DOOM" suffix!) has no docking port. So it's likely that it will be flown by individual pilots, or possibly loaded with multiple players at dock or space docking with another ship. Obviously it's too big to be flown like a fighter, so how do we fight off attackers? Any turret weapons will have to be fired by the AI. I know people have said a ship should not be as strong when not manned by human players, but I don't understand why. If I had my choice between a manned turret and the AI, I'll choose the AI every time. Why? It thinks a lot faster and fires more accurately. My suggestions is a simple rule based control system for the AI. Have a selection of behaviors control the broad strokes of how the weapons behave. For example:
No Fire - Weapons do not fire, regardless of attackers
Fire KOS Only - A ship board KOS list allows you to set a permanent designated target (see below). If the ship sees a KOS target in sector and in range, the weapons will fire on it. This can be very useful for traders to defend against known pirates. They won't lose valuable time setting designated targets from the sector list.
Defense Only - Weapons fire on a target if ship is first fired upon
Designated Target(s) Only - Weapons will only fire on user designated targets. This will be an important one in group efforts, for example, in a multinational guild. You designate targets from the sector list and your AI only fires on them. This will keep you from accidentally killing your friends.
Priority Fire - Weapons fire first on designated targets, and if none are in range, fire on any enemy targets in range. It would also be useful to be able to designate targets in priority order. For example, if I'm fighting a known dangerous pilot and a known less effective one, my target list can prioritize and fire on the dangerous pilot first if available.
Fire At Will - Fires on any enemy ship within range
Fire At All - Attacks any player in range
As a further step, it would be neat to be able designate certain weapons as computer control, and others player control. For example, say you install mines on your cap ship. You don't want the AI laying mines to attack a target.
Costs
With the coming economy redux, and the eventual inflation of ship costs, it could be easy to misprice a cap ship. My feeling is they should be prohibitively expensive to purchase. This would make their use less reckless, make pilots appreciate and protect them more, and keep them from relegating light ships to n00bs. A Trident should cost over a million credits. A TPG cap should cost 10 million or more, and a HAC should run in the 20-30 million range. It will be tempting to keep their prices low so people can experience them, but I think it's a mistake. Maybe make them free on the test server for testing, but once in production, big money! Cap ships should also cost money to keep and maintain. Perhaps a per jump cost or a per hour in space cost or something. Players should have to work to own them AND work to keep them.
Any way, wanted to throw that stuff in.
-tm
Flight Control
I've read a lot about your intentions with this, and it sounds perfect. It would be cool to be able to store sector routes the same way we can store /navroutes. This way if you frequently traverse a sector you can simply load your navigation path through the sector. The one issue I see is entry point. If I understand it correctly, there is a 3000 meter bubble in which ships enter a sector depending on which direction they come in from. I'm not sure how that should be handled. It might be nice to give cap ships better navigation systems so they can enter a sector at a more precise point. This might be a good idea anyway, as 1 in 10 times I enter a sector head on to an asteroid. A small ship can dodge, a big one, well, we've seen the pictures!
Station/Docking Interface and Abilities
I don't remember if you've ever talked about how the cap ships will dock with stations. Obviously, they don't fit in the docking port. I kinda figured we'd fly close enough and get a dock with station button turn on in our interface. Either way, I'm more interested in what happens from there.
There has been talk about using cap ships as personal and guild home bases. I'd like to see this happen for both individual players and for guilds. It would be great to dock the cap with a station and buy and transfer ships and weapons to the cap ship the same way I do cargo. Once in space, players can go to the hanger and take off in docked ship. Further, I'd like to see ship to ship transfers, allowing you to space dock with another ship and move cargos and equipment between them. I think this would allow some great group play as well.
Weapons Control
We now know the new TPG Destroyer of DOOM (all TGP ships get the "of DOOM" suffix!) has no docking port. So it's likely that it will be flown by individual pilots, or possibly loaded with multiple players at dock or space docking with another ship. Obviously it's too big to be flown like a fighter, so how do we fight off attackers? Any turret weapons will have to be fired by the AI. I know people have said a ship should not be as strong when not manned by human players, but I don't understand why. If I had my choice between a manned turret and the AI, I'll choose the AI every time. Why? It thinks a lot faster and fires more accurately. My suggestions is a simple rule based control system for the AI. Have a selection of behaviors control the broad strokes of how the weapons behave. For example:
No Fire - Weapons do not fire, regardless of attackers
Fire KOS Only - A ship board KOS list allows you to set a permanent designated target (see below). If the ship sees a KOS target in sector and in range, the weapons will fire on it. This can be very useful for traders to defend against known pirates. They won't lose valuable time setting designated targets from the sector list.
Defense Only - Weapons fire on a target if ship is first fired upon
Designated Target(s) Only - Weapons will only fire on user designated targets. This will be an important one in group efforts, for example, in a multinational guild. You designate targets from the sector list and your AI only fires on them. This will keep you from accidentally killing your friends.
Priority Fire - Weapons fire first on designated targets, and if none are in range, fire on any enemy targets in range. It would also be useful to be able to designate targets in priority order. For example, if I'm fighting a known dangerous pilot and a known less effective one, my target list can prioritize and fire on the dangerous pilot first if available.
Fire At Will - Fires on any enemy ship within range
Fire At All - Attacks any player in range
As a further step, it would be neat to be able designate certain weapons as computer control, and others player control. For example, say you install mines on your cap ship. You don't want the AI laying mines to attack a target.
Costs
With the coming economy redux, and the eventual inflation of ship costs, it could be easy to misprice a cap ship. My feeling is they should be prohibitively expensive to purchase. This would make their use less reckless, make pilots appreciate and protect them more, and keep them from relegating light ships to n00bs. A Trident should cost over a million credits. A TPG cap should cost 10 million or more, and a HAC should run in the 20-30 million range. It will be tempting to keep their prices low so people can experience them, but I think it's a mistake. Maybe make them free on the test server for testing, but once in production, big money! Cap ships should also cost money to keep and maintain. Perhaps a per jump cost or a per hour in space cost or something. Players should have to work to own them AND work to keep them.
Any way, wanted to throw that stuff in.
-tm
Yeah, the asteroids in front of jump bubble probably needs to go. I agree that exactly how the capital ships dock with stations is relatively insignificant and that (at least some) capital ships ought to be able to be loaded with small craft and people while docked. I would like to stick with the Devs idea of simply having characters - try to let NPCs and PCs be as interchangeable as possible - in this instance, for capital ship gunnery/gunners. For the case that you want a person to be able to fire something, but not the A.I., how about this: PC manned/controlled weapons automatically overrule a No Fire setting -- simply set the mines to No Fire and jump in the appropriate turret when you want to drop them. Capital ships should definitely be free on the test server. On the production server, I would like to have capital ships priced the same way as everything else (for purchase); however, I believe this will give you pretty much the result you are looking for (in initial cost). As for a maintenance cost, I think that might be interesting, but likely complicated. Thus I would like to relegate that possibility to until after the ships are in place and usable. Also, I believe the economy redux will come before or about the same time as capital ships becoming player-usable, so you do not need to worry too much about a bunch of capital ships being purchased for only credits just before the economy really comes into existence.
why not make cap ships jump in in their own jump in zones that are further out?
anyway, i am realy eager to see the cap ship interface. i'm envisioning a HUD with 3 compus like dials that can be used to set your attatude, and a click in space to plot the direction of the main engins thrust.
also i think it would be cool (even though it would be increadably inpracticle) if you could turn FA off in the cap ships and have them be piloted like fighters with FA off.
anyway, i am realy eager to see the cap ship interface. i'm envisioning a HUD with 3 compus like dials that can be used to set your attatude, and a click in space to plot the direction of the main engins thrust.
also i think it would be cool (even though it would be increadably inpracticle) if you could turn FA off in the cap ships and have them be piloted like fighters with FA off.
I remember a screenshot way back in the day of a station that had a 'ring arm' sticking out the side of it - I think it was desiged for a capitol ship to park in the middle of it and dock (mind you, it would probably be pretty strange to see a ship fly into a ring and then suddently disappear, so I imagine some docking arms / repair arms would come out from the ring as the ship remained stationary.
While the 'shuttle' idea is also pretty cool and practical (it could possible be fairly annoying to run back and forth between the station and the ship 20 times - so you'd probably just have it automatically done by cargo droids), you would still need a place for the capitol size ship to actually _dock_ to repair/reload and the like. And obviously, stations with those kinds of capabilities would be a lot harder to find than your run-of-the-mill stations.
While the 'shuttle' idea is also pretty cool and practical (it could possible be fairly annoying to run back and forth between the station and the ship 20 times - so you'd probably just have it automatically done by cargo droids), you would still need a place for the capitol size ship to actually _dock_ to repair/reload and the like. And obviously, stations with those kinds of capabilities would be a lot harder to find than your run-of-the-mill stations.
I'm actually of the mind that I wouldn't want to see player owned cap ships until guild owned stations are available. I mean, can you imagine if everyone decided to take their cappy's down to Miharu's one night? Parking would be nuts.
who said they need to dock?
Why couldn't you repair it in deep space? we already have repair guns and cargo vessels that can ferry cargo back and forth... besides which, we weren't thinking about turning the capships into cargo vessels were we?
IMHO, there's no need for a station when your capship acts as one, and you can maintain it without a station.
While I'd say that a spacedock for capital ships would be an interesting addition to some stations, they really aren't wholly necessary.
Why couldn't you repair it in deep space? we already have repair guns and cargo vessels that can ferry cargo back and forth... besides which, we weren't thinking about turning the capships into cargo vessels were we?
IMHO, there's no need for a station when your capship acts as one, and you can maintain it without a station.
While I'd say that a spacedock for capital ships would be an interesting addition to some stations, they really aren't wholly necessary.
But then Cunjo, if you were going to use your cap ship as a home base, how do you get ships and weapons there?
tumblemonster,
you'd pay players/NPCs / ferry it yourself via shulltels and the /explode exploit.
otherwise you'd have to dock at one of the relatively few stations cpable of servicing these things.
Gavan,
and how would player/guild owned stations help that? besides i don't think the intent is for everyone to have a cap. ship probably only the insanely wealthy (i mean the most insanly wealthy, not just the nomal level of insane wealth) would be able to afford them on any reliable basis (ie. be able to replace the first one they buy when the update first comes out)
you'd pay players/NPCs / ferry it yourself via shulltels and the /explode exploit.
otherwise you'd have to dock at one of the relatively few stations cpable of servicing these things.
Gavan,
and how would player/guild owned stations help that? besides i don't think the intent is for everyone to have a cap. ship probably only the insanely wealthy (i mean the most insanly wealthy, not just the nomal level of insane wealth) would be able to afford them on any reliable basis (ie. be able to replace the first one they buy when the update first comes out)
Lord Q,
I don't think using a /explode exploit is any solution to anything. And, you still need something to explode IN, so what do you use? You'll have to be able to dock a cap ship at a station to be able to place inventory and ships inside.
I don't think using a /explode exploit is any solution to anything. And, you still need something to explode IN, so what do you use? You'll have to be able to dock a cap ship at a station to be able to place inventory and ships inside.
tumblemonster,
yes i realise that but you could allows the cap ships to spawn buses (or escape pods) that could be used for departing the ship when it explodes or for loading fighters without unbalkancing the ships as a whole.
yes i realise that but you could allows the cap ships to spawn buses (or escape pods) that could be used for departing the ship when it explodes or for loading fighters without unbalkancing the ships as a whole.
Timely Bump
The first part of this post is a response to Andy's idea here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/11636#138664
I think an all encompassing sector view is bad for a first person game, where a lot of the ways of thinking/strategy is based around the fact that your only functional view is first person. IMHO, players would fly their capships to a location, and then mark it ala
/navroute mark "<NAME>"
the location would be saved as "<SYSTEM> <?> <##> <NAME>"
and to compile a navroute for a capship, you would type
/navroute make "<NAVROUTE_NAME> <SYSTEM1> <SECTOR1> <NAME1> <SYSTEM2> <SECTOR2> <NAME2> <SYSTEM3> <SECTOR3> <NAME3>"
...or something like that. If you wanted to add multiple locations in the sector to the route, you could exclude the <SYSTEM> and <SECTOR> and have the game simply take the <SYSTEM> and <SECTOR> of the previous marker.
Ok, so there's navigation for you. Now onto general capship control.
My ideas:
-Capships should only be able to dock with capital stations (which would have 2 or so special cappy docks)
-Cargo could be transfered between the station and the capship
-The capship would not disapear and could still be hurt
-The capship would repair completely in 1 hour, IE, 1% every 40 seconds
-Capships would be kicked out of the bay after 1 hour
-When the player who owns the capship is offline, he/she can designate a computer routine for it to follow, or designate an alternative list of copilots
-Turrets would respawn every hour at full health
-Turrets would not heal automatically
-Capships could store:
480 cu for a Trident
960 cu for an HAC
worth of:
A) Cargo
B) Ships at 10 cu a ship
C) Weapons and equipment at 3 cu a weapon
-Players could home in capships, but their is no guarantee there will be ships left for when they die
-The capship owner has access/rights to all cargo stored inside, including other people's ships and can designate who can buy what ships for what price
-A shipless player can only get out when a capship docks with a station (this would suck. Any ideas for better solutions?)
That's about it for now. You don't have to read it all, just a another big Calder-rant
-Calder
I think an all encompassing sector view is bad for a first person game, where a lot of the ways of thinking/strategy is based around the fact that your only functional view is first person. IMHO, players would fly their capships to a location, and then mark it ala
/navroute mark "<NAME>"
the location would be saved as "<SYSTEM> <?> <##> <NAME>"
and to compile a navroute for a capship, you would type
/navroute make "<NAVROUTE_NAME> <SYSTEM1> <SECTOR1> <NAME1> <SYSTEM2> <SECTOR2> <NAME2> <SYSTEM3> <SECTOR3> <NAME3>"
...or something like that. If you wanted to add multiple locations in the sector to the route, you could exclude the <SYSTEM> and <SECTOR> and have the game simply take the <SYSTEM> and <SECTOR> of the previous marker.
Ok, so there's navigation for you. Now onto general capship control.
My ideas:
-Capships should only be able to dock with capital stations (which would have 2 or so special cappy docks)
-Cargo could be transfered between the station and the capship
-The capship would not disapear and could still be hurt
-The capship would repair completely in 1 hour, IE, 1% every 40 seconds
-Capships would be kicked out of the bay after 1 hour
-When the player who owns the capship is offline, he/she can designate a computer routine for it to follow, or designate an alternative list of copilots
-Turrets would respawn every hour at full health
-Turrets would not heal automatically
-Capships could store:
480 cu for a Trident
960 cu for an HAC
worth of:
A) Cargo
B) Ships at 10 cu a ship
C) Weapons and equipment at 3 cu a weapon
-Players could home in capships, but their is no guarantee there will be ships left for when they die
-The capship owner has access/rights to all cargo stored inside, including other people's ships and can designate who can buy what ships for what price
-A shipless player can only get out when a capship docks with a station (this would suck. Any ideas for better solutions?)
That's about it for now. You don't have to read it all, just a another big Calder-rant
-Calder
I've already stated my opinions on the subject (I'm gonna bump that thread soon...). Just avoid the whole docking complication by not having capships dock. They're bigger than some stations anyways. Either have it repair slowly attomatically or have to consume scrap metal brought by you or NPC's that have been hired to do so.
BTW, the navroute commands seem stragely similar to what I suggested =D
BTW, the navroute commands seem stragely similar to what I suggested =D
Where fooz? I must have missed it, sorry I didn't read the entire thread. Well, that's my take on it anyway.
-Calder
-Calder
Maybe the cap ship can stock up with buses... :)
/bump
Inc? Do you care to respond and assure us that no Homeworld-esque interface will be used? Or are you afraid we'll mob you for saying the opposite?
-Calder
Inc? Do you care to respond and assure us that no Homeworld-esque interface will be used? Or are you afraid we'll mob you for saying the opposite?
-Calder
First Off, I see exploits left and right. Buy a cap, park 80 (100,1000, w/e) behomiths in cap, each loaded w/ phase arrays (or w/e), warp down to (fill in blank), unload moths.
How are you going to keep caps from being super tankers, or at least from being infini tankers? (guilds devoting all manpower to filling a cap, etc...) how about assigning every ship in the game a cu. and every ship you park in the cap deducts from it's total cu.
cap navigation should be a major pain. not every noob should be able to do it. it should be risky. caps crash, they get damaged and even destroyed. cap navigator could become a serious and well paying profesion for some players.
Caps should never, ever dock. or ever, by any means, be auto repaired. I certianly don't wanna see mr. super noob doing flybys every 5 minites just to run and dock and do it again.
If you give a cap more than 2 large ports and any cargo space, it will become the uber miner. I would love to have any ship with more than 2 large ports (practicly all my favorate weapons are large port, and I doubt I could ever have enough of them), and every miner in the game would luv it even more. even giving it 2 large ports will make somebody mine in it. really... they will.
No mater how much a cap cost, and no mater how crappy the cap is or isn't, there are players that will buy it, just to be seen in it. they will fly it to the busiest places. every where there is anybody to see them, there they will be. doing nothing in particular (unless it has large ports, in which case they will cook every roid in sight), other than chatting away. I can already see B8 with 7 caps lined up side by side... chatting..."I hit 5 ion storms on the way..." bla bla bla. and you can't even just go shoot them. please kill me now.
I would love to see player owned and operated caps in the game. I would love to own one. but some body please make these thing as risky as flying a moth or a vult.
How are you going to keep caps from being super tankers, or at least from being infini tankers? (guilds devoting all manpower to filling a cap, etc...) how about assigning every ship in the game a cu. and every ship you park in the cap deducts from it's total cu.
cap navigation should be a major pain. not every noob should be able to do it. it should be risky. caps crash, they get damaged and even destroyed. cap navigator could become a serious and well paying profesion for some players.
Caps should never, ever dock. or ever, by any means, be auto repaired. I certianly don't wanna see mr. super noob doing flybys every 5 minites just to run and dock and do it again.
If you give a cap more than 2 large ports and any cargo space, it will become the uber miner. I would love to have any ship with more than 2 large ports (practicly all my favorate weapons are large port, and I doubt I could ever have enough of them), and every miner in the game would luv it even more. even giving it 2 large ports will make somebody mine in it. really... they will.
No mater how much a cap cost, and no mater how crappy the cap is or isn't, there are players that will buy it, just to be seen in it. they will fly it to the busiest places. every where there is anybody to see them, there they will be. doing nothing in particular (unless it has large ports, in which case they will cook every roid in sight), other than chatting away. I can already see B8 with 7 caps lined up side by side... chatting..."I hit 5 ion storms on the way..." bla bla bla. and you can't even just go shoot them. please kill me now.
I would love to see player owned and operated caps in the game. I would love to own one. but some body please make these thing as risky as flying a moth or a vult.
Making things (anything) hard on purpose = just not fun. Any newb SHOULD be able to pilot a capital ship, they just should NOT be able to simply afford one (nor, obviously, possess the license levels to use one).
Any ship is clearly large enough to at least carry its own cargo capacity, thus I suggest some formula for how much space each ship takes up (and thus any ship with at least that much CU can carry it). e.g.: CU + 3*ports + 3(battery) + 25(cockpit etc.); thus a bus would take up (18+3+3+25) = 49CU.
Capital ship should probably not be insta-repaired, but they should be able to dock (greatly simplify crago transfer at least) and only a very few should auto-repair (I think there should probably be a piece of equipment that does it VERY slowly).
TRS, get ahold of yourself as far as people just chatting. It's called "being social" and most humans do that... Also, there is no way a capital ship will be balanced for a 1v1 fight against fighter craft. So, instead of sulking "and you can't even just go shoot them" (which, by the way, is generally considered rude), go ahead and get your own capital ship and THEN just shoot them (though 7v1 I expect you will lose).
Any ship is clearly large enough to at least carry its own cargo capacity, thus I suggest some formula for how much space each ship takes up (and thus any ship with at least that much CU can carry it). e.g.: CU + 3*ports + 3(battery) + 25(cockpit etc.); thus a bus would take up (18+3+3+25) = 49CU.
Capital ship should probably not be insta-repaired, but they should be able to dock (greatly simplify crago transfer at least) and only a very few should auto-repair (I think there should probably be a piece of equipment that does it VERY slowly).
TRS, get ahold of yourself as far as people just chatting. It's called "being social" and most humans do that... Also, there is no way a capital ship will be balanced for a 1v1 fight against fighter craft. So, instead of sulking "and you can't even just go shoot them" (which, by the way, is generally considered rude), go ahead and get your own capital ship and THEN just shoot them (though 7v1 I expect you will lose).
IMHO ships shouldn't take up room par se in capships, but their cargo would be unloaded into the cargo section of the cap before docking, and the actual ship would be stored in a fighter bay that has limited space.
-Calder
-Calder